Seminar

Abstract

A set of R agents located at a base node are going to explore an unknown network.  The objective of the agents is to discover all nodes and return their base in the shortest amount of time.  The agents have no prior knowledge of the topology of the network and its explored segments during the process of exploration.  The agents can only communicate through local interactions.  The variants of the problem arise in several application areas such as multi-robot search-and-rescue operations, hazardous chemicals cleaning, and social networks.  In this study, we first present an agent-based simulation approach to study and solve the problem in a distributed manner.  The agent-based simulation approach is able to model many real-life requirements, which are ignored by the current heuristic approaches to the problem, and find very good solutions.  Secondly, we present two mathematical formulations of the problem and an efficient algorithm to solve the special case of the problem on trees optimally.  The mathematical formulation provides the lower bound for the best exploration time of a network.  Therefore, it is a useful tool to study the effectiveness of decision policies that are employed in the agent-based simulation model to minimize the exploration time.  We develop new decision policies and compare their performance to the existing approaches.  Finally, we provide computational results for the agent-based simulation and mathematical model.   

Short Bio

Abdullah Konak is a Professor of Information Sciences and Technology at the Pennsylvania State University Berks.  Dr. Konak received his degrees in Industrial Engineering, B.S. from Yildiz Technical University, Turkey, M.S. from Bradley University, and Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Konak also held visiting positions at Lehigh University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong.  Dr. Konak’s current research interest is in the application of Operations Research techniques to complex problems, including such topics as network design, network reliability, facilities design, green logistics, and data mining.  Dr. Konak has published papers in journals such as IIE Transactions, Operations Research Letters, European Journal of Operations Research, Informs Journal on Computing, IEEE Transactions on Reliability, International Journal of Production Research, and Production Economics.  He has been a principal investigator in sponsored projects from the National Science Foundation, the US Department of Labor, the National Security Agency, and Venture Well.   Dr. Konak currently teaches courses on Database Management Systems, Big Data, Information Security, and Technology-based Entrepreneurship. He is a member of IIE, INFORMS, and IEEE.